The Art of Being a Secretary
by Keiran
Summary: Intelligence is not a trait highly valued in secretaries. They evolved in accordance with that fact. A story of one crush and its only witness. Mild slash content. Starring: the Patrician.


Author: Keiran  
Title: The Art of Being a Secretary 1/1  
Rating: 13+.  
Warnings: vaguely implied slash.  
Pairing: one sided Patrician + Vimes.  
Genre: humorous, general.

Notes: Unbetaed. I did my best to edit out all the mistakes, but some might remain.

xxxXXXxxx

On the whole, Lord Vetinari firmly believed in intelligence. He believed in secretaries as well. He just felt reluctant about mixing the two. Granted, the position of a secretary to the ruler of Ankh-Morpork by definition requires a certain degree of smartness. Things like the ability to read without the use of the index finger and processing the information into a digestible chunk, as well as forming appropriate conclusions.

Intelligence, on the other hand, implied independent thinking and that was discouraged. Often forcibly.

Naturally, there are some things human beings will do, no matter how many will be stoned to death in the process. One of these things is forming opinions (the other is fornicating, but that's a wholly different matter). Drumknott was a rare breed among humans. He was not intelligent, which is common enough; he was smart. You could tell by the way – when sorting mail – the letters addressed to the Patrician and marked as 'private' went on a separate pile, and were delivered personally and immediately, without convenient pauses over pots of boiling water. His ambitions, should he care to identify them, came down to improving the efficiency of reading hours. But most of all, you could tell by the way his non-work related opinions and conclusions were forgotten, as soon as they made themselves known.

Secretaries, contrary to the popular opinion, are not a mad invention of a diabolical genius, bent on making life difficult for everyone equally. They are a result of centuries of evolution in the highly dangerous habitat of The Office. Through the years, their intelligence dwindled down and their smartness multiplied. Considering the specification it was rather surprising they hadn't yet evolved a paperclip on either hand. Drumknott was one of the profession's finest.

Naturally, none of this had ever crossed his mind (it might be worth knowing that somewhere on another plain of existence the personification of evolution wept tears of joy in a very expensive, sparkly dress in front of a crowd of other anthropomorphic creatures, clutching a golden 'For Special Achievements' statuette to her chest). On Discworld, somewhere in the vast vacuum of Ankh-Morpork Drumknott was finishing off the day by updating his organizer, for next morning. In a minute he would blow on the fresh ink, close the book, take off his bathrobe and settle in his narrow bed.

Then he would wake up when the first rays of sunlight appeared on the sky, yawn twice, and slowly make his way to the office, where he would spend the day managing the paperwork, and observing the ruler of the greatest city in the world deal with his current condition by acting like a schoolboy.

Drumknott might not be the greatest authority of all, but the Patrician's condition, although outside his area of expertise, was not entirely unfamiliar. The secretary knew a crush when he saw one. He was certain that if there was a small, black organizer with the name 'Havelock Vetinari' penned over the neatly engraved 'name', dates followed by 'Annoy His Grace Sir Samuel Vimes (the Duke of Ankh)' would have been calligraphed in. Of course, the existence of such book was but a myth, and if anything of its kind existed, Drumknott was it.

He was not paid to be amused (even if he had remembered how to, which he hadn't). He was paid to remember when Lord Vetinari wanted to torment Commander Vimes.

Granted, this crush could be just wild interpretation of unrelated facts, but if there was one thing Drumknott never did, it was interpreting. Drew conclusions, possibly. Speculate, sometimes. Interpretations tended to leave people vulnerable to many sensitive situations and forthcoming queries, such as 'so when you found him at the crime scene, with the murder weapon in his hand, claiming he was innocent, you assumed he was telling the truth why?' and often ended unpleasantly. Yet another area where smartness proved to be essential.

The Patrician followed the Watch's activities with the zeal of an eleven-year-old researching insects to shove down their chosen one's shirt during lunch break, only in Vetinari's case the bugs were harder to shake off. Drumknott lost count of the many occasions he happened upon the Patrician admiring the collection of fist-prints on the wall outside his office, and he could swear each one had a very discrete date and time scribbled next to it. He tended to push it out of his mind, since, like he reasoned, everyone needed a hobby, and the supreme rulers were no exception.

**END.**


End file.
